Alternative shouldReceive Syntax

As of Mockery 1.0.0, we support calling methods as we would call any PHP method, and not as string arguments to Mockery should* methods.

The two Mockery methods that enable this are allows() and expects().

Allows

We use allows() when we create stubs for methods that return a predefined return value, but for these method stubs we don’t care how many times, or if at all, were they called.

$mock = \Mockery::mock('MyClass');
$mock->allows([
    'name_of_method_1' => 'return value',
    'name_of_method_2' => 'return value',
]);

This is equivalent with the following shouldReceive syntax:

$mock = \Mockery::mock('MyClass');
$mock->shouldReceive([
    'name_of_method_1' => 'return value',
    'name_of_method_2' => 'return value',
]);

Note that with this format, we also tell Mockery that we don’t care about the arguments to the stubbed methods.

If we do care about the arguments, we would do it like so:

$mock = \Mockery::mock('MyClass');
$mock->allows()
    ->name_of_method_1($arg1)
    ->andReturn('return value');

This is equivalent with the following shouldReceive syntax:

$mock = \Mockery::mock('MyClass');
$mock->shouldReceive('name_of_method_1')
    ->with($arg1)
    ->andReturn('return value');

Expects

We use expects() when we want to verify that a particular method was called:

$mock = \Mockery::mock('MyClass');
$mock->expects()
    ->name_of_method_1($arg1)
    ->andReturn('return value');

This is equivalent with the following shouldReceive syntax:

$mock = \Mockery::mock('MyClass');
$mock->shouldReceive('name_of_method_1')
    ->once()
    ->with($arg1)
    ->andReturn('return value');

By default expects() sets up an expectation that the method should be called once and once only. If we expect more than one call to the method, we can change that expectation:

$mock = \Mockery::mock('MyClass');
$mock->expects()
    ->name_of_method_1($arg1)
    ->twice()
    ->andReturn('return value');